


Eclipse / Eulogy

by InslideBlaseball



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Hellmouth Sunbeams (Blaseball Team)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InslideBlaseball/pseuds/InslideBlaseball
Summary: The Sun goes dark. Bob grows a tail. An air of constant tragedy fills what was the Moab. The universe according to Lars.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Eclipse / Eulogy

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published 13/10/2020 on the Inslide Blaseball newsletter: https://inslideblaseball.substack.com/p/eclipse-eulogy

Dear readers, this is a weird story to tell. I wrote a different one before Day 84, stopped, and this I’m writing now, after the playoffs. My intern Bob was doing field research in the Hellmouth. He was to interview former Sunbeams turned Jazz Hands star player Randall Marijuana, and current Sunbeams no-star player Lars Taylor to talk about the origins and ethos of the Hellmouth Sunbeams. During Day 84 of Season 6 of the Internet Blaseball League, a rogue umpire incinerated Randall Marijuana.

Bob was in the stands. The entire Sunbeams and Jazz Hands wings of the Houston Spies’ home stadium, which has no unclassified name and is located in an undisclosed location, exploded. Fans crashed against the bulletproof glass separating the stands the field. Despite the complete darkness in which all spectators lied (a measure, the Spies’ rep whispering in my ear tells me, they came up with solely for the purpose of reducing distractions from the show), everyone huddled in mourning. Despite the noise-cancelling headphones which whisper a weird and hypnotizing sequence of numbers every spectator’s forced to wear, everyone joined a chant of “EAT THE GODS! EAT THE GODS!”.

The game went on. It had to. It did not stop when Landry Violence was incinerated, it could not stop then.

Dear readers, I think it’s worthwhile for me to write about this tragedy and to make it part of this story. There’s narrative continuity here - I don’t think the universe makes any sense, but I think we can make it rhyme. And what’s the point of stories, if to give a meaning to what’s senseless, random, pointless and horrible? In other words, to life?

Bob grew a tail. Physical, psychological and supernatural modifications are common among those who spend an extended amount of time in the Hellmouth. They adapt to its sunscorched suburbs and hallowed burnt out deserts. I’m not certain what exact function a tail serves there, but I’m sure there’s one and Bob says he can handle the heat much better now. One of these quirks and mutations was the precognition Randy developed at the beginning of last season. I wonder: did he foresee his own death? Was he a modern day Cassandra, cursed to know the future but never be able to alter it? Bob asked around. His teammates say he indeed was uncharacteristically nervous that day, not exactly the chill and upbeat Randy they usually played with. But it was only a moment, only a cloud passing by the Sun and vanishing. It took only a few minutes with his team for him to return to his usual self.

The interviews with Randy and Lars would have taken place after the regular season or after the playoffs, if the Beams made them. Though they came closer than ever before, they ultimately did not. When Bob sat down with Lars and started transcribing the pitcher’s answers from sign language (he can speak, it’s just more efficient that way), the discussion invariably turned to Randy.

“It’s…weird, you know,” said the pitcher. “I didn’t really…think about him, when he was with us. I did not try to understand what he was about, who he liked or disliked, to figure out how I should act around him…he just…you know, he just made you feel at ease. There was only his somewhat floral scent and his constant encouraging smile. I never realized how much he had become part of my life until he was gone.”

Bob nodded. Despite how little time he had spent near Randy, he too had felt that aura.

“I get the impression he held the team together?”

“Oh, we all do a little bit of that. But…yeah, he definitely did. Yeah.”

Lars’ eyes followed something distant. He aimlessly petted one of Randy’s many cats with one of his many hands. The sun peeks over the clouds and into the room, cutting Randy’s figure in two. He was split between the Sunbeams that were and those that are.

Randy’s cats will soon be placed in a cat cafè run by one of Randy’s dearest friends, and although I’m obligated to not raise in you any touristical feelings, I should mention that they are some of the cutest, fluffiest, and wonderfully unsettling in all of catdom.

Story goes that Lars sold all his Blaseball talent and almost all of his eyesight for knowledge. Of course, it’s just a story, and it would be highly inappropriate and possibly dangerous to ask directly about it.

“Do you know what happened to Randy?” Bob asked.

Lars bent his head sideways and moved his head towards the interviewer. He could not see but his eyes focused on Bob.

“Do I know what happened to Randy…?”

“I’ve heard stories that you hold arcane and forbidden knowledge. Does any of it give us any information about what exactly happened to him? Feel free not to answer if you don’t want to, and I apologize if this question-”

“No, it’s fine.” he cut in. “Well, I’m very curious to know where that information comes from, but I can tell you that…okay, see. It’s…it’s complicated.”

Lars leaned towards Bob. The cat jumped off his lap. He rested his uncountable hands under his chin.

“Look. Everything we do is explaining the sunrise.”

A pause. He blinks. Bob notices a faint glow in his eyes.

“You know what HELIOATRY is, right?”

Bob nodded.

“Right. The belief in the Sun. Most people on this planet are HELIOATERS, of course, because most believe the sun exists. But there’s different degrees of HELIOATRY, and different ways to interpret that belief. You follow?”

Bob nodded again.

“So you have some people who say ‘Oh, the Sun is so great and beautiful, we only need to worship it by looking into it until our eyes bleed and expose our naked bodies to its godly rays.’ Others who are like ‘The Sun will eventually consume all. Rejoice, play videogames and eat chili con carne.’ And a million other variations. But…when it comes to my personal beliefs, what I think I’ve realized after irresponsibly selling out my greatest gifts and possibly my future as a Blaseball superstar to some unknown presence I met at the bus stop…see, I don’t think HELIOATRY is directly _about_ the Sun.”

Bob started nodding, stopped halfway through, and said “Wait, what?"

“It’s about how _we perceive_ the Sun. How we relate to it. What it means to us. What connection we establish with it. How we explain its existence, and the wonderful art of its sunrise and sunset and of every instant it keeps on shining. For me…it’s a way to think about the universe. About how…everything works.”

He produced a blaseball ball from the folds of his uniform and jockeyed it between his many hands, before telekinetically lifting it in front of his face.

“This is us. This is our planet. We spin endlessly in the void of space. There’s nothing besides. Eventually, we will all die.”

He covered the ball in his hands, then opened them. The ball was no longer there.

“But that’s fine. All we need, at the end of the day, to be fine with that…to make our peace with our eventual total annihilation…is a sunrise. Or a sunset. Or the Sun. Or a Randy. A still point in the turning world. Something to make us believe there’s _something_ , out there…something beautiful.”

A pause.

“So…I don’t know where Randy is. Some say he’s within the Sun. Some say he’s only ashes. Some say he’s within all of us. Every single one of these may be true or may be false. But…”

He threw the ball up from one of his hands. It floated and stood still in front of him.

“We’re still here. We’re still turning. Next season, we’re going to put on our uniforms and by the Sun we’re going to play the best Blaseball we’ve ever played. Or…just, fail, I guess, and that’s okay too. I do not know where Randy is in the same way I do not know what the Sun actually _is_ , if a God or our coach or an extremely large ball of gas in whose core immensely strong explosions shake and shape the matter of the universe. But I do know what both of those meant, and mean, to me.”

Another pause. Lars leaned back, the ball fell, his eyes glazed over. Bob said nothing.

“So…that’s it. That’s the universe according to Lars.” the pitcher murmured.

Lars covered his face. Bob thought he saw the glimmer of tears in his bright eyes.

“It still fucking hurts.”


End file.
